please dry my flowers

let them hang high above

to soak in life’s flame 

and fossilize that warmth  

after my last breath withers

before I surrender to that final fire 

lay those dried petals upon my cold hands 

and rest them in my hair

- the strands that have long known 

how to flow in death

the ashes that hold us as one 

will meet the earth once again

in a forest where my feet once danced 

and perched still crouching down 

peering at what grows up 

and what falls in 

from the cracks where her heart opens 

there scattered and immersed 

i’ll look up from the skirt of reborn flowers

and down from those canopying leaves 

and think of the eyes that will see me

through 

over and over again 

a blessing to see this cycle 

pause for just a moment